


i felt fine inside a mind so full of ghosts

by tempestaurora



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War compliant, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Soul Stone, Thanos is a dick, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, there is one (1) swear word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 15:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16200548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: Peter is trapped in the soul stone, when he blinks and finds himself in Tony Stark's lab once more. He hasn't gone back in time, he's not hallucinating - he's here, and there's Tony and Tonycan't hear him.Peter and some of the other ghosts of the dusted dead follow their loved ones through life after the Infinity War, unable to contact them, unable to comfort them, and unable to do anything but watch as the Avengers assemble to take Thanos down once and for all.Also, Peter's missing Tony Stark having a child. He can't even hold his little sister.





	i felt fine inside a mind so full of ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'dreamers' by k.flay
> 
> i think i said once that i'd never write an infinity war fic but it turns out i lied. i saw something on tumblr once about what if peter was right there beside tony but neither of them could see each other or something like that and then i thought of this this morning, so enjoy it.
> 
> i worked hard

It hurt to arrive in the orange world.

It hurt for Peter’s body to rebuild itself, one speck at a time. He was once dust, floating through the breeze of Titan, and now he was here – wherever here was – reforming and feeling every inch of it.

When his lungs had finally stitched themselves back together, he gasped in a breath so harsh it stung.

There was water at his feet, as orange as everything else – no light source to make this glow, maybe what he stood on was its own sun, its own light – but it gave everything a distinctly orange tinge to it.

He fell to his knees, but only his feet felt the water.

He was alone in the orange world and then he blinked. Then he was surrounded by people; faintly crying and shimmering with a blur of nonexistence. In and out. They weren’t really there – not as real as him, at least. He couldn’t see through his own hand but they were translucent; they were fading window panes with faces stretched in agony.

_Where are we?_

When he spoke it only sounded in his head, but his lips moved anyway – was sound even possible here?

_The soul world_ , came the response. Another voice that Peter turned to search for, despite the words echoing in his head alone. Behind him stood Doctor Strange, and Peter heaved himself to his feet. The wizard looked more real than anyone else he’d seen, but his cloak was fading at the edges. _We’re inside the soul stone, Peter._

Peter blew out a breath, though breathing was one of those things he wasn’t sure he needed to do anymore. _Are we dead?_

_To the real world, yes. Our souls live on in here._

_Did Thanos win?_ At Peter’s soul-spoken words, the nearest bodies to him convulsed and screamed. Their voices pierced from the inside of his skull out. Strange watched on without expression.

_For now, he has won. But there is still a chance._

_What do you mean?_

Strange no longer looked at Peter, but out at the millions of souls that would surround them for all eternity. _Fourteen million possibilities, Peter. This is one of them. In fact, it’s most of them._

_We were always going to end up here?_ Peter asked. He didn’t like this orange world, with its constant, orange glow, and the water that didn’t feel wet around his feet.

_Almost always. But don’t worry yourself just yet. The one universe where we win had this too._

It was relief that washed over Peter, but it was gone soon after. They were on the right track. Thanos could still be defeated. Mr Stark could still save the universe.

_He’ll get us out of here,_ Peter promised.

Strange wasn’t there when he looked around. In fact, the souls that surrounded him now were all different and unfamiliar, though Peter hadn’t felt himself move at all. He looked to the closest soul, a young woman with dark skin, her face frozen in a state of shock.

_Mr Stark will get us out of here_ , Peter told her.

Peter stood by her side as she cried in response, and when he blinked, he was looking at someone entirely different.

 

*

 

Time didn’t exist in the orange world and neither did fatigue. Peter tried counting the seconds as he walked in one direction, none of the scenery changing and nothing to tell him he was moving apart from the faces that he passed.

He counted to six hundred, held up one finger, and started again.

He reached all ten fingers and felt fine. There was no vague aching, he was not out of breath, it didn’t even look like he’d moved at all. The orange world was keeping everything in stasis and he huffed, sitting down in the water that didn’t feel wet.

_Mr Stark,_ Peter said, _I’m sorry._

Peter knew Tony Stark couldn’t hear him. He knew that his mentor who’d taken extra interest and put extra effort into Peter since the Toomes Incident was still in the real world; in the real universe, probably killing Thanos as he spoke – or maybe he was home, trying to regroup, finding out the extent of the damage.

Was Pepper alive still? Rhodey? Happy? What about the other Avengers – or that news anchor he watched on the six-o-clock news every Wednesday.

He swallowed. What about May? Ned? MJ? Flash? He hadn’t seen their faces here but he hadn’t been looking closely – what if he’d passed them a hundred times and not found them? What if they’d been reaching for him but couldn’t latch on; their bodies too thin and barely there?

He’d be alone in the soul world for the rest of eternity. The only difference between him and everyone else was the powers, was that he’d held out – he’d seen how fast the other Peter and his alien friends had crumbled into nothingness. Peter Parker had held on. Peter Parker had dragged it out. Peter Parker had felt every little bit of his body tearing into pieces.

And that meant Peter Parker could feel every little bit of the soul world.

_I just want to see Mr Stark._

He blinked.

 

*

 

Peter recognised the lab. He’d worked there every weekend since Toomes, had fallen asleep on the sofa, against that workbench, on the ceiling. There was a station in the corner of room dedicated to web fluid – his designs still littering the table just like the last time he saw them. They’d been making a new version to stitch together wounds. Mr Stark had an early version of it enabled in his Bleeding Edge nano suit.

It had sewn up the stab wound on Titan.

This lab was Mr Stark’s personal one in the compound. And though Peter had only been there a week before, it looked different. It looked trashed. The only place untouched was Peter’s desk; the rest of the room a mess of turned over chairs, broken technology and scorch marks, where fires had burst into life.

If Peter had known he could ask the soul stone to put him somewhere, he would’ve done it earlier on. But this was not what he wanted to see. He didn’t want to see his second home in ruin; he wanted to see Mr Stark.

Peter turned, suddenly. There was the sound of a smothered sob and Peter frowned, searching for the source.

_Mr Stark?_ Peter’s voice was still only echoing in his head and he tried again, to make it appear around him, but the figure on the ground didn’t hear him. No, the figure on the ground was forcing away the tears that drenched his face. Tony Stark, curled in on himself, leaning against a workbench as he sat on the floor, one hand clamped over his mouth and the other holding a glass bottle. Brown liquid sloshed inside and Peter’s heart broke.

Tony was over a year sober.

Peter rushed to Tony’s side, hands unsure of how to help. Was he really here? Was Peter? Was this just an image thrown together by the soul stone, or was Peter just hallucinating it himself?

No, Peter wouldn’t hallucinate this. If this was Peter’s mind, it would be a good day, the workshop in order and Mr Stark laughing at whatever crummy joke Peter was telling him. Peter wouldn’t imagine this in his wildest dreams.

_Mr Stark. I’m here. It’s me, Peter, come on. I’m fine – I’m just stuck._

Tony lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long drink. He winced as he swallowed, coughed and swiped harshly at the tear trails with his knuckles.

“God, Pete,” Tony said, his voice on the outside of Peter’s head, not the inside. Peter’s eyes flashed wide.

_I’m here! I’m here! Can you hear me?_

Tony rolled to his feet, stumbling to standing and not taking one look at his workshop before he left, bottle in hand. Peter followed close behind, slipping through the doors before they shut him in and tracing Tony’s steps to the elevator.

“Where’s Pepper?” Tony asked, taking another swig.

“Master bedroom,” FRIDAY replied.

_FRIDAY!_ Peter yelled. _Pepper!_

The elevator started moving and Peter let himself feel relieved. Pepper Potts was fine. She was okay. She’d help Tony through this and out the other side. Peter wondered who else had survived the snap and craned to see anyone in the hall as he followed Tony along. But they were alone. The corridor was silent and Peter followed Tony into his bedroom – a room he’d never been in before, but wasn’t surprised by the sleek comfort of it.

Tony placed the bottle on the bedside table, and Pepper rolled over in bed.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said. “Have you been drinking?”

“What does it matter?”

Tony slouched into bed and Peter, now aware what he was watching, frowned and sat in the armchair across the room. He curled up his legs underneath him, prepared to leap out a window if he saw anything PG13.

“It’ll matter in the morning,” Pepper replied.

“Then it doesn’t matter now.”

They were silent for a little while, Pepper curling herself into Tony’s body, despite the smell of alcohol. Eventually, Tony said, “Six months today.”

“I know, honey.”

“Six months and I’m no closer to getting him back. He’s dead, Pep. My kid is dead.”

Peter frowned, watching them. His kid? _What do you mean?_ Peter asked, but whether this was real or not, Tony couldn’t hear him.

“You don’t know that,” Pepper replied. “Didn’t Bruce say they’re all in the soul stone? He’s still alive in there.”

“How am I supposed to raise a kid when my first one is dead, Pepper?” Tony tried to sit up but Pepper held him down. She pulled him closer, and Peter stood from the armchair. The words weren’t making sense in his mind, like he was missing half the context.

“Not dead,” Pepper replied. “And you’re going to do a great job. You’re going to raise her and you’re going to get Peter back – Tony, we’re going to survive this.”

Tony let out a breath. “Six months.”

“I know.”

 

*

 

As they slept, Peter remembered the six months. They had all been the same; the walking, the counting, _one, two, three, four- fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty._ They’d been filled with monotony, with loneliness and longing. He’d been surrounded by half the universe. He’d never once recognised a face.

The not-wet water had made no sound as he paced through it.

It had been six months and Peter had only counted to six hundred ten times. If he could throw up in this state, he would, but instead, he watched from the armchair as Pepper and Tony slept their restless sleeps. Pepper, noticeably pregnant – _Her, she said Her_ – and Tony growing agitated from what looked like a nightmare.

Peter tried to open the door, to explore, as he didn’t need sleep in this state, and it was feeling more and more real by the moment – but the world wouldn’t interact with him. He pressed on it and felt nothing. He tried to move the handle with all of his strength and it was like he was touching air. He tried to punch the window and his fist just stopped, no sound occurred, no pain flared.

He was here and he wasn’t.

_Did the soul stone construct this?_ Peter wondered aloud.

Eventually, he sat back in the armchair and watched them sleep. He watched the nightmare and Tony’s body refuse to wake up. He watched Pepper, holding him in a death grip while still unconscious. He watched until morning shone through the window and the sun began to rise.

Pepper was up first. She took a long look at Tony before rolling out of bed. Six months had been a long time and Pepper’s stomach was growing a life inside that Peter was missing. He wasn’t there to help name the baby and talk to her and insist that they play classical music because it would help make the baby a genius.

Tony would tell him the baby would already be a genius. Tony would tell him what a great pretend big brother he’d be. Peter would offer his services babysitting and Tony would say that he wasn’t going to pay him for it.

Peter would do it anyway.

Pepper grabbed an assortment of clothes and wandered over to the en suite. She picked up the bottle of brown liquid along the way and Peter saw just enough through the open door of the bathroom to see her pour it down the sink. He waited in the bedroom as she showered and Tony remained dead to the world.

Six months had passed but Tony was sleeping, Peter could at least feel glad about that.

But Peter had had a good six hours to mull on Tony’s words of _my kid is dead_ and Peter couldn’t help but wonder how many sleepless nights Tony had gone through since Thanos. How long he had been drinking for since Peter crumbled – Peter knew he was important to Tony as his mentor had insisted on telling him as often as possible ( _I’m trying to break the cycle, you know?_ ) but he didn’t know about _my kid_ and he didn’t know that he’d drown himself over Peter and he certainly didn’t know that he was going to have to _watch_ Tony go through it.

Tony was still dead to the world so Peter followed Pepper out into the compound. He wanted to see the faces of the staff, still alive and still going – but it was empty. Pepper wasn’t dressed in her formal work clothes, but sweats and a t-shirt, and Peter realised it was because no one was going to see her. No one was here anymore.

She ate breakfast alone until May walked in.

_May. MAY._

Peter rushed to see her but when he pulled her into an embrace she kept walking, and he couldn’t feel her skin, the warmth of it, and he let go. Tony couldn’t hear him. Pepper couldn’t see him. May couldn’t feel him.

_May. I’m here. I’m okay. Please, listen to me. May!_

She sat down at the kitchen island and pulled a bowl from the stack.

“Morning,” she said to Pepper, who responded in kind.

“I didn’t see you yesterday,” Pepper said as May poured out her cereal. Peter slouched into a seat and watched them.

“It was the anniversary,” May replied. “I spent it in bed.”

Pepper nodded and the conversation closed. Peter didn’t want to think about May staying in bed all day, mourning Peter’s death. May Parker was the last Parker left standing, and she’d married into the name.

Peter tried to knock the bowls of the table but it didn’t work so he grunted and watched May and Pepper talk about small, insignificant things. Then, Peter’s ears perked up at footsteps. He tore his mind from the thoughts of _Aunt May staying at the compound and not at home because she didn’t want to be in the apartment alone anymore_ to the sight of Steve Rogers walking into the kitchen.

They greeted each other, and Peter darted from his seat.

Steve Rogers was alive – but the two people following him were decidedly not.

They were following slowly, and they didn’t look as solid as Peter, but not like they were the frozen masses of the orange world. They were awake, if barely, and they looked to him as Peter stood up.

_Falcon_ , Peter said. _Winter Soldier – you’re-you’re_

_Dead_ , Falcon replied, his voice quieter than Peter’s. Less there. _Call me Sam._

_Bucky_ , the other responded. They weren’t gone, just diminished, and they leaned against the island as Steve Rogers poured his cereal.

_How long have you been following him?_ Peter asked. _How long have you been out of the orange world?_

_Last night_ , Sam said. _I don’t know what I expected when I saw him, but it wasn’t this._

_You would’ve thought they’d be in Wakanda, getting ready to go into space_ , Bucky agreed.

Peter frowned. _Why?_

_Because we’re still alive, kind of._ Bucky shook his head. _I don’t understand why they’d stop trying after a few weeks._

_A few weeks?_

Sam tried to reach into Steve’s bowl and pick up some of the cereal before he put the milk in, but nothing happened. Peter hadn’t felt the need for food since he came apart at the seams. _Yeah,_ he said in Peter’s head, _it’s time for battle plans still, isn’t it?_

_A few weeks._ Peter sighed. They didn’t know, but then again, Peter had only been here a few hours and there was a lot he didn’t know, too. _Yesterday was the six-month anniversary of Thanos._

For a moment, he heard the screaming again of a million souls. He flashed into the orange world, saw their gaunt, crying faces, and then he was back beside the Avengers in the kitchen.

_You’re shitting me_ , Sam said.

_Six months._

Peter nodded and they fell silent. The whole time the living at the table had been talking about something, and Peter tuned in as Steve said, low, “They’ll figure this out.”

 

*

 

The Avengers were missing a few people – like Peter, Sam and Bucky. Also, Wanda was gone, apparently torn to pieces like them, but not here, stalking the halls of the compound like the rest of the dead. Vision died when Thanos tore the mind stone from his forehead, so he couldn’t be here either.

Otherwise, everyone else was alive. Tony stayed exclusively in his lab, and Pepper brought him food throughout the day, reminding him to eat. Bruce was down there, too, sighing and standing the chairs back up and suggesting they move to his lab until Tony’s was fixed. They talked of Thor, at one point, out on a mission with a woman called Carol. Thor wasn’t afraid of space, like Peter now was. He’d firmly pushed away his dreams of being an astronaut.

Natasha was apparently on assignment, too, working a lead here on Earth, and Rhodey and Happy stopped by during the day. Peter, when he managed to slip out the door to follow Bruce up to the main level, found May sitting with Clint Barton and his two remaining children, Lila and Nathaniel. She braided Lila’s hair as the little girl watched cartoons, and the two adults spoke in low, calming voices to each other, about what they lost and what they’ll get back.

Peter barely saw it, but out of the corner of his eye, there was a third woman, barely there. She had long, brown hair and sat at Clint’s side, brushing her hands through his hair, tears rolling down her cheeks. When Peter tried to look at her, she vanished.

 

*

 

Months passed in the same way.

Peter followed his makeshift family through their lives, occasionally going to New York and California, jumping onto planes in their wake or slipping into the spare seat of a car. Peter went with May back to New York, visiting Ned and MJ – Ned’s mother had vanished into dust and MJ’s only remaining parent, her father, took him in until she returned. Peter went with them to school, though they didn’t notice his presence, figured he’d find his way back to the compound sooner or later.

He’d told Sam when he followed May out the door. _I’ll be back soon. Probably._

_Don’t wander too far_ , he’d replied. His voice was barely a whisper.

Only half the school remained and it was palpable. Peter’s locker looked exactly how it used to, but Peter had never seen Ned look at it with heartbreak etched over his features. He’d never seen MJ so pointedly ignore it.

In classes, Peter’s seat was taken by someone in another class. They’d pushed the classes together when the teachers vanished too. Peter stood by the window, watching Flash complete his work in silence. He noticed Betty wasn’t there and neither was Abe. Cindy sat in her regular seat but didn’t do any work; she stared at the whiteboard as if in a daze.

Peter walked into her line of sight but she didn’t even flinch.

When the teacher gently nudged her back, she blinked and ducked her gaze.

He followed her out of the room after class, her friend whispering, “It’s okay not to be over it,” and Cindy replying, “I’ll never be over it,” right back.

It was Academic Decathlon day and the team was smaller. They still quizzed each other, and Peter answered the questions, too, because he could. Mr Harrington wasn’t present and they had a different teacher Peter didn’t recognise leading. After, Peter followed Ned and MJ home, slipped into Ned’s room before he shut the door and sat on his bed, watching Ned complete his homework and stare forlornly at the boxed set of Lego that had yet to be touched.

Peter ran the back of his finger against a photo on the wall; he and Ned, arms around each other’s shoulder; only to find Ned looking at it too. His jaw was tense and Peter didn’t like the look of anger on him. It didn’t match his features.

Peter watched them eat dinner and slipped out an open window when they were done, exploring Queens by himself. He found the memorial; one of many he’d later learn – the names etched on tall slabs of marble. _New York’s Lost_ , the title read. He found his name soon after, and then the names of people he knew, hundreds of them – more people than he realised he knew. But still, there was _Peter Parker_ , and at the end of the list there was _Spiderman,_ and there were the flowers at his feet, the candles still burning, the stuffed toys and tied ribbons. The _I’m sorry_ notes, the _rest in peaces_ and _gone too soons_.

Peter walked away from the memorial, all the way back to his apartment, and he sat outside his front door. The windows were all shut and the door was locked, so Peter settled into the hallway, desperate just to sleep.

 

*

 

When he joined the real world in this vague, layered dimension kind of way, he first laid in May’s bed at night and listened to her breathing. But too soon he became too agitated for that and would stalk the halls of the compound, eager not to get shut in a room he wouldn’t be able to get out of. One day, a month or so in, he’d followed Rhodey into a supply closet only to get shut in there a few seconds later. It was two days until anyone opened the door again, and Bucky had raised an eyebrow at his return.

_Where were you?_

_Got locked in a room._

Bucky smiled but it was faint. Everything he did was faint. Peter wondered if he was faint, too; if Bucky saw him a ghostly thing, rather than the real person Peter thought himself as.

Tony was still working, and it was soon enough that Captain Marvel appeared in a great flash of light, Thor by her side. Carol Danvers, they called her. She brought some life back into Tony’s eyes, swinging an easy arm around his shoulder as they stood in the lab.

She swiped through the holoscreens of his research and relayed her own in kind. There were rumours that were more like promises about the Titan’s location. They could find him. They could kill him. They could bring everyone back.

When she said that, she swiped a screen again and there was Peter, grinning a toothy smile next to Tony. Carol smiled in a sad kind of way.

_Mr Stark_ , Peter said, though neither could hear him.

“We’ll get him back,” Carol promised.

“It’s his birthday tomorrow,” Tony replied. “Seventeen.”

Peter didn’t know this; he’d long lost track of time when he was wandering the orange world for six hundred counts.

They spent his birthday in mourning. There was cake, because May wanted there to be cake, and everyone sat around the living room, having returned from their missions, to miss a boy only a few of them knew. It was depressing at first, and Peter sat beside Tony, resting his head on his mentor’s shoulder, until someone told a story about Peter and someone else started laughing.

Lila and Nathanial had cake smeared across their face and Tony told a joke Peter had taught him. They talked about Spiderman, and soon enough were watching _Peter Parker’s Greatest Hits_ as the file was called, a selection of scenes from the Baby Monitor camera and FRIDAY’s surveillance systems that Tony had saved. Many of them involved Peter falling down, others getting stuck in his own webs, once slipping on a banana peel as he tried to show Tony that they weren’t that slippery in real life.

Then there was light and joy in the room. There was happiness once more and Peter laughed with everyone else because it was his birthday, he was seventeen, and this was a room of people who loved him.

 

*

 

He tried to find Doctor Strange in the sanctuary he’d read about over Tony’s shoulder in the lab. It took him a long time to get in; the door rarely opened, and when he did, he couldn’t find the spirit of the wizard anywhere. He followed a man named Wong around for a while instead, and finally reached a bedroom that was supposedly Strange’s, by the way Wong opened the door just to stare at it.

Peter spotted a picture on the desk, a bright smiling woman, and Peter blew out a breath. He recognised her distantly as one of May’s co-workers at the hospital. Maybe May didn’t work there anymore, but the woman might.

At the hospital, life still bled out and activity was constant. The sterile white walls were the opposite of the dust that scattered and Peter imagined how it would’ve been; patients dusting during surgery, the doctors sewing their new hearts into place vanishing in a blink. These halls would’ve been coated in ash.

Peter wandered until he found her. He watched from a gallery of interns into an operating theatre, and spotted the woman assisting in the surgery.

_I wondered when I’d see you again_ , a voice said in his mind. Peter saw Strange, leaning against the wall at the other end of the gallery and walked over.

_You’ve been here the whole time?_

_Not the whole time. Just some of it. I come to work with her some days._

Peter watched the surgeons operate. _Is she your girlfriend?_

_Something like that. Where have you been?_

_The compound,_ Peter replied. _With Mr Stark._

_Is he close yet?_

Peter knew what he meant. The orange world was still just outside this one, encapsulating it. Sometimes Peter saw glimpses of it, like seeing through a gauzy curtain. _Carol thinks she knows where Thanos is._

The orange world. The screaming faces. The way his heart thumped hard against his ribcage. He’d learnt long ago not to say the Titan’s name, but Peter didn’t care. Sometimes it felt right, the pain of sorrow screeching through his brain.

_Carol?_

_Captain Marvel._

Strange shrugged like he didn’t know her. _This could be the one_ , was all he said.

They watched the operation until Peter asked, _in fourteen million possibilities, you didn’t see yourself using your portals to teleport only his head to the sun?_

Strange laughed. It sounded like the first time he’d laughed in years.

 

*

 

Peter didn’t sleep but he took to lying in Mr Stark’s bed, because there was a strange comfort in lying between he and Pepper when they were quiet. Some nights they were restless, and Peter would talk them through their nightmares, even if they couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t feel the baby kick when Pepper woke up to it, but he imagined he could.

_I’ll be back soon_ , he promised, while they slept. He was talking to the baby, too. She’d need a big brother, and Peter had always wanted a little sister. _Just wait a little longer._

*

 

Peter was there when Pepper gave birth because he wouldn’t miss it for the world. From the maths of it all, it meant he’d been in the stone for ten months. He’d decided long ago not to care if this was all a simulation the stone had made up for him; Peter still cared about this Mr Stark and this May – he still loved them anyway.

Her water broke in the middle of the day and Tony rushed out of the room as soon as she said so on the phone. Peter ran to keep up with him. When the door to the car opened, Peter slipped inside and into the back seat before Tony had even settled behind the wheel, Pepper in the passenger side. Her contractions looked painful and she screamed a lot.

“This is awful, this is awful, this is awful,” she said the whole way through them. There weren’t any medical staff at the compound anymore – they’d all gone when everyone else had. They went to a private hospital and Peter clambered out the car _over_ Pepper because it seemed like the best way not to get trapped in the vehicle.

It was hours before anything happened and Peter stayed by her side the whole time.

_You can come out, you know,_ he said to the baby, as if the baby could hear into the layered dimension. _You won’t meet me right away, but you’ll meet me soon enough. I’m Peter. Your kind of big brother. Hell – you can’t hear me. I’m your brother, and you are my favourite baby in the world, because you’re my little sister. Even if I’m trapped here the whole time, I’m going to watch over you, okay?_

Peter stayed by Pepper’s head when she went into labour. He held her hand, though he couldn’t feel it and she couldn’t feel him. The baby was born at two AM, with all ten fingers and all ten toes and she cried so loud.

_Pair of lungs on her_ , Peter said, weakly laughing.

Pepper held her baby with such awe in her eyes. Tony pretended he wasn’t crying but Peter saw through that. He loved his little girl already. He’d do anything to protect her.

“Morgan,” Pepper decided. “After my crazy uncle, remember?”

Tony laughed weakly. “Morgan.”

Peter stayed with the baby rather than the parents. He followed her through the hospital, hung out in the room of cribs, twenty new borns all small and sleeping. He didn’t leave her side and he talked to her the whole time, as if the echoes of his voice would pierce through the glass separating them, and she’d know him instinctually when he returned.

A day later, Tony held his daughter while Pepper slept, and he showed her a picture on his phone. “This is Peter,” Tony whispered, making sure Morgan could see his face. “This is your big brother. I know he’d do anything to be here right now, but he can’t. So I’m going to get him back, no matter what it takes. You’re going to grow up with him, okay? Even if I’m not here, he will be.”

Peter hadn’t cried since entering the orange world of the soul stone. He didn’t know he could. Peter sat by Tony’s side, holding him for comfort even though he couldn’t feel the fabric of Tony’s old MIT hoodie in his hands. He cried because Tony was going to go back to space and fight Thanos and die to bring Peter home. He’d leave his daughter to do it, even though he didn’t want to, and Peter understood.

“I can’t be happy if he’s not here,” Tony whispered to Morgan, his expert secret keeper. “I can’t have you, my perfect little girl, if my son isn’t here too. I can’t just keep going like he was never here, so I’ll bring him back, and I’ll do my best to come back too – I love you so much, okay? I need to go and save the world so everyone has their children back. So I have both my kids in one place.”

Peter watched, two weeks later, as the remaining Avengers left for Wakanda. As a woman with blue skin and a talking racoon greeted them. As Queen Shuri gripped Tony’s arm and said, low, “I believe in you”, as a dark-skinned man who was there but not stood nearby, watching.

They filed onto the ship and Peter nodded to Bucky and Sam, following Steve. He nodded to this newcomer, Black Panther – _T’Challa_ , he remembered – who waved them goodbye, unwilling to leave his sister alone. He nodded to big Peter, to Drax and Mantis, already on the ship beside a waving tree. He nodded, then, to Wanda, who climbed onto the ship with them with a grim determination flickering on her barely there face.

_It’s good to see you again_ , Sam said, swinging a ghostly hand around her shoulders.

_You too, birdbrain,_ she replied. _Let’s go watch our friends save the universe._

*

 

The blue woman – Nebula – and the racoon – Rocket – co-piloted, and Peter stood beside Tony, watching them talk quietly about the battle plan. They called Captain Marvel “Captain” and Captain America “Cap” and no one mentioned the distinction.

“We’re going to bring them home,” Carol swore. “Everyone we lost. They’re coming back today.”

“Like Bucky,” Steve said. “And Sam.”

“Wanda,” Rhodey added. “My Mom.”

“Laura and Cooper,” Clint agreed.

“T’Challa, Jane. Sif.” Thor said.

“Quill. Groot.”

_I am Groot._

“Tree,” Thor said with a nod at Rocket.

“Drax. Mantis. Strange.”

“Hope. Hank. Janet,” Scott said.

There was silence and then Tony let out a deep, shuddering breath. “Peter.”

“They’re coming home,” Carol repeated, and Peter had half a mind to believe her.

 

*

 

They found Thanos on a distant rock and the orange world shook when the battle began. Through the blood and sweat and rubble the orange world broke through the seams of Peter’s reality again and again. His Iron Spider suit twitched and tingled distantly, like he was asking for a hundred things to help but it simply couldn’t give it to him.

The screaming started up in earnest when Thanos was on his knees, blood pouring from his head and lights blasting all around.

Peter blinked and he was back in the orange, blinked and he was back in space. Tony wore a suit he called Titan Killer, and the Hulk tore at Thanos in blind rage.

_Do you feel that?_ Wanda asked. _Do you feel the stone screaming?_

Peter nodded. It wanted to let everyone out. It wanted to empty itself of lives so it could breathe again. It wanted to go back to its void and hide for eternity.

_Let us out_ , Peter said, though the stone didn’t respond. _Let us go home._

Thanos didn’t die immediately, and the battle raged on. People fell, the bled, they cried and died and Bucky screamed as Steve was speared through the chest, blood coughing from his mouth. Bucky had never looked so real as that moment, running to Steve’s side.

When the gauntlet finally left the Titan’s hand, Peter felt the stones shudder. They wanted a master or they wanted to be free. There was no in between for them.

Bucky couldn’t cradle a body he couldn’t touch.

“Go for the head,” Thor advised. He and Captain Marvel glowed in blue and yellow, electricity and raw power forming around their bodies before delivering a strike that burrowed into the planet and obliterated Thanos’ body from existence.

Thanos became ash, dust, and scattered in the breeze.

_Serves him right_ , Sam said.

Then there was silence, and the Avengers looked from Thanos’ crater, to Steve’s body and to the golden, gleaming gauntlet.

“The endgame,” Tony said, like he just realised he’d passed it. The endgame happened seconds ago and it took the life of Captain America and a power-hungry Titan. He leaned down, picking up the gauntlet.

“Are you sure about that?” Rhodey asked, his voice a wheeze.

“I’m bringing them back,” Tony replied.

The gauntlet slipped over the Iron Man armour, Tony’s faceplate down. Peter could see the moment the power rushed through him, because he took a deep breath like it was his first one. The orange world was calling to Peter, dragging him slowly from the planet and back to his body, out there, somewhere, reforming.

Tony stared at the gauntlet and everyone stared at him. “Bring them back,” he commanded, snapping his fingers, and that’s when the orange world rushed back at him.

 

*

 

“Tony,” Peter said, his voice outside his head for the first time in a year. He ached and stung as his body stitched itself back together in the spot he stood on a distant planet, somewhere far from Earth.

He’d never called him Tony before, but Peter figured today was a special occasion.

_“Peter._ ”

The suit gave way around Tony until it was just the man underneath, meeting Peter half way across the battlefield and pulling him into a grip so tight it could cut of circulation. “It’s okay,” Tony said to Peter’s first gulping breath, his first sob breaking free, “It’s okay. You’re here. You’re alive. You came back.”

“I know, I know,” Peter said, holding on and _feeling_ Tony beneath his hands. He’d almost forgotten how skin could be warm. “I’m here. You brought me back. You got me back.”

Around them was chatter and laughter and tears. Quill reforming beside Drax and Mantis, Rocket lurching suddenly for Groot as the tree grew once more. There was Wanda, enveloped in hugs, and Sam laughing brightly about it all. Then there was Bucky, grabbing onto Steve’s lifeless body for the first time in almost a year and tugging him into his lap, ignoring the blood that smeared across his hands.

Peter breathed, Peter could feel, Peter could touch once more.

They went home.

 

*

 

“I have so many surprises for you,” Tony said with a rueful smile as they journeyed across the galaxy. “So much happened in your time away.”

“A year’s a long time,” Peter agreed, leaning against Tony with all his weight. It felt strange, to need things again. To _need_ to breathe, to need the bathroom, to need to sleep. “I can’t wait to meet Morgan.”

Tony pulled back. “How the hell do you know about Morgan?”

Peter grinned. “A lot happened in the stone, too. I’ll tell you all about it after my nap.” His eyes were closed, a smile still on his face.

“Yeah, okay, kid,” Tony said, pulling him back in. Across the room, Peter knew Sam was watching him, like he had been for four months; keeping an eye on the youngest Avenger. He figured Sam would tell them what happened, that they were pulled back into the real world, just out of reach, and they watched.

“I love her, by the way,” Peter whispered.

“Yeah, I do, too,” Tony replied.

“I’m gonna be the best big brother.”

“You will,” Tony agreed.

“I never want to watch someone being born again.”

“You _what-_ ”

 

*

 

One day, Peter would tell baby Morgan that for the first two weeks of her life, Peter never left her side, even if she couldn’t see him. Standing somewhere just out of sight, the air would be knocked right out of Tony’s lungs.

 

*

 

Peter loved being reminded of how people felt. Like May, when she hugged him for the first time since he came back to life. Like Ned and MJ, embracing tightly on the front steps of MJ’s house. Like Flash, even, who hesitantly patted him once on the shoulder, with a _good to have you back, Parker_.

The world had to adjust to half the universe reappearing in the spots they’d died – or, the spots they’d been watching from. Not everyone had that, apparently; not everyone was coherent enough in the stone to call out and reach their family again. Peter was glad that he was.

Someday soon, there would be a press conference and the Avengers would explain what happened. Tony would say that he destroyed the infinity stones bar one, but in reality he scattered them to the corners of the galaxy, to rocks unturned and to benevolent beings who never wanted to see their use again. One came back to Earth, slotted into place in the regeneration cradle as a body was built with the remains of JARVIS and Vision, and something new and familiar was born.

Someday soon, the funeral of Steve Rogers, Captain America, would be broadcast across the globe, and the world would see the Avengers, marching his coffin down the aisle. They would see Sergeant Bucky Barnes cry and pretend he wasn’t, would see the supposedly dead Director Fury back from the grave to watch his friend be lowered into it, would see his friends and family mourn the man, not just the hero. Peter sat next to Tony on that day, with baby Morgan in his lap. He’d gotten to know Steve in four months of following him; he’d gotten to know the man who promised his Aunt every morning that Peter would someday return.

And someday soon, the world would slip back into place, almost as if there hadn’t been a year when half of it was missing, dusted in the wind. And Peter would laugh again without remembering a time where he didn’t, and he would lift Morgan high onto his shoulders and run around the park while she giggled and her parents watched on, and his Aunt would share cookies that were actually baked well, and the orange world would be so far from his mind, it would be like it never happened at all.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! i had a lot of fun writing this
> 
> pretty please leave comments because they make me so happy and they absolutely make me write faster ok  
> tell me your thoughts! ily you guys!


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